Case
01
·
Branding
Halyard Coffee
A new identity for a Rotterdam roaster moving from one harbour kiosk to three shops and a shelf in every good grocer.
Client
Halyard Coffee, Rotterdam
Year
2026
Timeline
14 weeks, brief to opening day
Team
Lotte Ambroos, Ruben Bakker, Mila Janssen, Sem de Groot
(01) The challenge
Good coffee, a name nobody could pronounce, and a logo drawn on a napkin.
Halyard started in 2019 as a cargo-bike kiosk on the Wilhelminakade. Five years later the founders had a roastery, a wholesale list of forty cafés and a lease on three shops. The brand had not grown with them.
They needed an identity that could sit on a 250 g bag, a shop front and a delivery van, and that baristas would be proud to wear. Without losing the harbour story regulars loved.
Fig. 01 · Stationery and the sticker sheet for wholesale boxes
(02) The solution
A flag that works as a signal, a word mark and a coffee bag.
We kept the name and built everything around a halyard, the rope that raises a flag. The mark is a pennant cut from a single line, readable at 12 pixels and at 4 metres.
A serif with sea-chart roots, a palette of harbour green and signal orange, and a bag system where each origin gets its own flag. The baristas chose the apron colour.
Fig. 02 · The takeaway cup
Fig. 03 · Fraunces, four colours and the rules between them
Fig. 04 · The pennant, drawn from one line
Fig. 05 · Primary lock-up
(03) Results
Six months after launch
+38%
Retail sales
3
Shops opened
112
Grocers stocking the bag
4.2k
Customer posts tagged
(04) Client
(05) Credits
Creative direction
Lotte Ambroos
Design direction
Ruben Bakker
Design
Mila Janssen
Motion
Sem de Groot
Photography
Iris Kok
Signage partner
Havenletters, Schiedam
Next project · 02
Digital
·
2026
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